Hey, Noshers! Have you entered my Green & Black’s chocolate giveaway yet? The contest ends tomorrow, and you can enter once per day via twitter! What are you waiting for?

My first experience with spaghetti squash involved a recipe from the Swedish Chef in Muppet Magazine – are you a Muppets fan?  And is that magazine still in circulation? It was a great publication! I’m clearly dating myself here.  ANYWAY. I don’t know if it was because I was six or my palate wasn’t ready for it, but I just wasnot a fan of spaghetti squash.  And hence, I didn’t try it again for 20+ years.  I didn’t have a strong aversion to it per se, but it just never came on my radar as a veggie of choice.  Well what do you know – spaghetti squash is everywhere at my local farmer’s market this time of year, and I thought it high time to revisit this stringy melon. I decided to go with a simple preparation with garlic, basil and parm. So easy and delicious!

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Not the finished product, but the key ingredient – butternut squash!

One of my late-stage CSA prizes was a beautiful butternut squash.  I had eaten butternut squash multiple times before but had never prepared one before, and let’s face it – the solid husk was a bit intimidating.  What was one to do?  Well, I like the sweet taste of this mild veggie, and I LOVE soup, so this recipe from Allrecipes.com was right up my alley – a sweet but hot curry butternut squash and pear soup.  Perfect for these brrrrrr cold days!

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I never thought that I’d say this, but I think I’m having veggie withdrawal.  I know, crazy, right?  I’m not talking about just any veggies though – I’m talking about my CSA veggies!  My weekly share ended last month,  and I sure do miss the perfectly ripened, flavorful produce that I picked up.  I didn’t think I’d be able to tell the difference, but let’s just say grocery store tomatoes have been forever ruined for me.

I thought I’d share one of the vegetables that showed up pretty late in the season – green tomatoes.  I had never cooked with green tomatoes before, but as soon as I saw them in my weekly share I knew I had to try frying them.  They named a whole movie after fried green tomatoes, so they’ve got to be at least pretty good, right?

Looking to my How to Cook Everything book as well as the good old internet for guidance, I quickly whipped up some toasty fried tomato slices. Interested to see how I did it? Read on!

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Happy Thursday, Noshers!  Just wanted to do a drive-by post – look what showed up in my CSA last week!

Aren’t they cute?

Enjoy the rest of your day!

PS – if you haven’t entered my BUILT lunch tote giveaway yet, time’s a tickin’!  Remember, you can enter once per day via twitter!

I was so excited when one of my favorite but rarely consumed veggies made its way into my CSA pick-up: the sunchoke!  Also known as a Jerusalem artichoke, the tuber is neither from Jerusalem nor related to the artichoke.  However, its starchy, flavorful meat is thoroughly delectable.  If you ever come across a sunchoke, I highly recommend you give it a try.  (And for the ginger averse like myself, not to worry – it does not taste like ginger at all!)

For a super easy preparation, you will need:

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While I’ve been fairly diligent about my Veggie Resolutions this summer (belonging to the CSA certainly helps!), there is one vegetable that keeps on popping up on the list that I’m not crazy about.  The oft-dreaded veg? Greens.  Yes, the most veggietastic of vegetables, this generic term encompasses my least favorite vegetable.  Chard, lettuce, random greens – eh.  So when I saw this recipe for Chard with Oranges and Shallots in my How to Cook Everything book, I thought I’d give it a try.  Oranges – yum. Shallots – yummm. Chard? Eh. Well, we’ll see.

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I recently posted a tutorial on how to prepare fava beans, as well as a yummilicous recipe for fava bean and asparagus risotto.  As opposed to the risotto recipe, which takes a bit of time to prepare (though well worth it, in my opinion!) – today’s recipe for fava bean and mint salad with Parmesan is quick and easy.  And the end result just bursts with fresh produce flavor!

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Here’s a Fun Fact (and it’s not even Friday!) – sometimes there’s a bit of a delay between when I take photos and when I actually take a close look at them.  Case in point: I made a Caprese salad a few weeks ago with some CSA tomatoes (aren’t they gorgeous?).  I wasn’t even going to take a photo since Caprese = easy peasy.   However, at the tweeted request of a Big Apple Nosh reader, I arranged a plate and took a few quick snaps.  When I pulled these photos from my camera just tonight, the above photo totally cracked me up.  I thought it would add ambiance to put a few tomatoes as a backdrop for the caprese, front and center.  What we are actually seeing here though, is tomato carnage.   The three tomatoes in the background are looking on in horror at their former vine-mate, sliced and diced and layered between dairy and herbs.  The smaller tomato on the right is trying to make a quick and surreptitious getaway.  Poor, poor tomatoes – soon met a similar fate the very next day.  As you can see, my personification of vegetables only goes so far.

Annnnyway, Caprese salad is a great option when you’ve got your bumper crop of late-summer tomatoes.  And it’s also one of the easiest and quickest dishes to make, ever.  You will need:

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Happy Monday, everyone!  How was your weekend? Mine was spent preparing for Hurricane Irene; despite being surrounded by an evacuation zone, the hurricane itself was a bit anti-climactic – just heavy rain. I guess I shouldn’t complain, huh?  Well, it’s back to another week!  Today, I’d like to share with you one of my favorite CSA vegetables – the luscious fava bean.

My first experience with fava beans was in the form of a Chinese snack – fried, salted, oily and indulgent, this delectable treat was in the realm of potato chips and pork rinds; major deliciousness!  It wasn’t until years later that I first tasted my fresh fava bean, and the love was equally as fervent.  Preparing fresh favas requires a bit of work on your part, but the results are well worth it!

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A while back, I was looking through my go-to reference book, Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything  – I’ve been consulting this book a LOT lately, as I’ve received veggie after unfamiliar veggie from the CSA.  A recipe for zucchini pancakes caught me eye for several reasons:

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